


Waiting

by Lita_Snow



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Even's appearance is only brief but I still felt he should be mentioned, F/M, I love these two babies so much, KH3 spoilers (does this even need to be tagged a year later?), Namine POV, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Rare Pairings, angst into romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:41:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22473517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lita_Snow/pseuds/Lita_Snow
Summary: After her recovery, Naminé waits for her dearest protector to return to her.
Relationships: Naminé/Riku Replica (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	Waiting

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: So in Re:Chain there’s this scene just before Marluxia’s first battle sequence near the end of the game in which Riku Replica admits that while the promise he remembers making Naminé in his heart was a fabrication she created, he still (like Sora) believes that it’s real for him, and so he would protect her no matter what. Then with his sacrifice at the end of KH3, giving up a vessel he could use to have his own life because he still wants to protect Naminé however he can….it just gets to me, y’all. I don’t know what to tell you. I have a lot of feelings for these two.

Naminé sits by the empty vessel every day. They haven't found his heart yet, and there's a chance they never will. But still she sits there each day, waiting and praying and thinking of him. He paid the ultimate price for her, her guardian, giving her the chance to live her own life, at the cost of his own. He promised her that he would protect her, and what could be better than giving her a life of her own?

"You gave me a second chance to live in your place. But who will protect me now, if you're gone?" she murmurs. What purpose does this second life have, what is she meant to do, when he was supposed to be _here beside her?_ How does she enjoy the life he gave her knowing that it was paid for so dearly?

Every night, in this little house near the castle, she sleeps at the side of the new body created for him, hoping that perhaps her presence would help lead his heart home to her. But there was no knowing if that would even be possible. There's no way to know whether his heart is even still out there, or if with his purpose met, it's passed on to the afterlife. She can only pray.

So she falls asleep here day after day, cold and alone and on the edge of despair with this empty puppet beside her, waiting waiting waiting and praying harder than she has ever done and likely ever will, thinking of him and yearning for him to come back to her. What else is she supposed to do with her life when the one person who has always cared for her above all others isn't with her? No one else has ever cared for her more than him. She's sure that no one else ever will.

When at last a heart appears, she's hazy with sleep, the exhaustion of the way she's been spending every day making it hard to focus. But her eyes catch on the red glittering of a crystalline heart, and she watches as it sinks into the vessel's chest. The entire body glows gold briefly, and then nothing else happens.

She watches with bated breath for ages after, but nothing more occurs. Her heart aches, unsure if she'd really seen that happen after all, and her eyes burn as tears form and drip to the sheet below her. She lowers herself to the bed again, even though she knows the only way she'll rest now is if she cries herself to sleep.

But it turns out there is one change after all. She's not cold anymore.

In the morning, and the mornings that follow, she witnesses tiny changes to the doll. She had never seen the process herself before, but evidently it takes time for the body to match the heart inside it, and so it remains asleep until the process is complete. She waits, worry clogging her throat, hoping to all the gods that might have compassion that the heart that came to them is the one it was meant to be. But as silver hair begins to spike from its head, and silver lashes frame closed eyes, as its body begins to shape itself into a familiar form, her concerns abate, and she watches with impatience instead. Doll joints smooth into skin, hiding the forming muscle and bone beneath it, perfect angles and deliberately ambiguous shapes meld into beautifully imperfect familiarity, and the chest begins to move as breath returns and fills out his lungs.

When his hand has reformed, Naminé takes to holding it, the physical touch calming her as much as she hopes it assures him, in whatever way he may be aware. She’s here, she’s waiting for him. She still sleeps next to him every night, mornings delighting her as she sees his form change more and more to what she remembers of him.

There are a few changes she didn’t quite expect, but it really only makes sense. He’s taller now, his hands bigger, his body a little bit more defined. His heart had aged with Riku’s, after all. So, though her memory of him is based on the fifteen-year-old he was originally created at, physically his form should reflect his heart, and his heart is seventeen like the original Riku’s is.

He’s not identical to him anymore though. His hair remains longer, and there are tiny imperfections that Naminé can mark at a distance even if no one else would be able to. She knows him best, after all. She built his original heart, filled it with memories that he claimed as true, even though she had created them. He will never know how much it meant to her that he chose to treat her like they were real, because for him, who had nothing before, they were. The promise to protect her that she had fabricated, he decided to take as true, and everything he did, he did for her. How could she not love him?

His body does form without clothes, however, and so she’s grateful for the blanket that covers him when she realizes that he’s never going to manifest the dark outfit he’d always worn before. She informs Even of the progress and averts her eyes when he brings the still-unconscious boy a set of clothes and changes him into them, though Naminé refuses to leave the room. She fears irrationally that he’ll disappear if he leaves her sight for even a moment.

She asks Even if he knows when Riku will wake, but he merely shakes his head and says that it’s different for each person. Naminé herself slept for a month after her body had fully adapted to the doll before she woke at last. Though she’s a very special case, with very different circumstances. He believes it won’t be nearly as long for Riku. His body is complete. Now they’re just waiting on his heart.

Days and nights continue to pass in the same vein. She keeps an eye on him through each day, sketching to pass the time, waiting as patiently as she can, and every night she sleeps at his side, holding on to his hand to keep her grounded. He’s here. He just has to wake up.

Then one day, she hears his breathing pattern shift and her gaze darts to his face, her sketchbook slipping to the floor unnoticed. As she watches intently, his face twitches, and then his lashes flutter open, blinking dazedly with those beautiful blue-green eyes.

“Riku? Riku, do you hear me?” she asks breathlessly as she moves from her chair to the edge of his bed to be closer to him.

His brow furrows slightly as he follows her voice and turns his head to find her. “Naminé,” he breathes, and oh, it is so good to hear his voice again. He and the other Riku may sound the same on the surface, but they aren’t, not if you know how to listen. He smiles at her, and she can’t contain herself.

Tears well up and spill down her cheeks, formed from relief and happiness for the first time since she’d learned what he had done for her. And she does the only thing that comes to mind, sensible or not. She drops closer and kisses him. It’s a bit wet and salty from her tears but nonetheless it seems perfect, and he lifts a hand from his side to cup the back of her head, keeping her there longer. When he lets her, she pulls back just a bit, and he uses the space to sit up, before bringing her back to him again and initiating a second kiss, pulling her close with his other arm wrapped around her back as hers fall into place around his neck.

When they’re momentarily satisfied enough to break from their kiss, Naminé scoots up into a more comfortable position beside him on the bed and he tucks her into his side, keeping her safe and warm with his arms around her. She leans her head against his chest and breathes freely at last. There will be a time to talk about everything between them, but that is not this moment. For this moment, it is enough to be held in one another’s arms and content in the knowledge that they are together again.

Later, Naminé tells him, “You’re my hero, you know. My white knight. I couldn’t be here without you.”

“Hero, huh? Hero...you know, I should probably take a new name. Let the original Riku and I be separated even more. So…what about Hiro?” he replies, a little bashful as he looks to her for approval.

She smiles sweetly. “I think it’s perfect. And no one else needs to know where it came from unless you want them to. So the reason can belong to just us.”

He reaches up and ruffles her hair to distract her from the way his face heats up from her response. “I’ll be Hiro then. Your Hiro.”

She doesn’t bother batting his hand away, as the gesture doesn’t really bother her at all. She just looks up at him, hair in total disarray, and smiles again. “Mine. As I’m yours.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I absolutely take advantage of the fact that KH is basically both Japanese and English simultaneously and so I can use a Japanese name that people will accept without question that also has a different meaning in auditory English.
> 
> (bonus points since Riku Replica is the one who shows up in San Fransokyo, eyyyy) (I had not even remembered that until this moment, whoo!)
> 
> And if anyone is wondering, I figured that while Even would have preferred to keep Riku in the lab where he could keep an eye on him himself, he eventually caved to Namine's insistence that she be allowed to keep him at her side as long as she kept him abreast of any changes whatsoever. And since everyone's got gummi phones now that would have been no issue. I didn't write this in simply because I couldn't find a place to fit it without ruining the flow. (And frankly, Riku probably would have been slightly panicked to wake up in Even's lab *again* when the first life he led was so traumatic, so waking up somewhere completely different with just Naminé present is probably better for his health imo.)


End file.
